


Resolute

by asplitsecond



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23778100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asplitsecond/pseuds/asplitsecond
Summary: Because Valerie should have been there to report on Lucy's kidnapping. 2x16 fix-it fic.
Relationships: Tim Bradford & Lucy Chen, Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Comments: 5
Kudos: 101





	Resolute

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, I haven't written anything in like five-ish years? This is probably insanely OOC, and might not make any sense. This idea wouldn't leave my mind, or let me get any sleep, until it was written. I hope you enjoy!

“So, you’ve got a bunch of victims who aren’t talking.” 

Valerie smirks saying, “Wrong. They’re not talking to the police, but I got one of the guys to talk to me off the record this afternoon.”

Lucy nods for her to continue. “And…?”

Valerie sets her drink down, leaning into Lucy slightly. “It’s exactly what I thought. He hooked up with a woman online. They went to a hotel, they go upstairs, they get naked, then a guy walks in with a gun. He steals the guy's watch, money, phone, and then tells him ‘If you talk, your family’s gonna get hurt.’”

“Did you get a description?”

Valerie presses her lips together and swallows. “He did me one better… he gave me the woman.” Lucy pinches her brows together at that, unsure of what exactly Valerie means. Valerie hesitates, shifting slightly in her seat. “I've got to be honest with you, Lucy. I didn't bring you here to talk about the robberies. And I didn't bring you here for thank you drinks.”

Lucy blanches, leaning forward to set her glass on the table. “You - you lied to me,” she presses her hands down the front of her jeans, in a sad attempt to alleviate her anxiety, and takes a deep breath in, before meeting Valerie’s eyes. “W - why are we here?”

Valerie narrows her eyes at Lucy. “Originally, I brought you here to catch a robbery in the act. It was gonna get me a killer story and you a high profile arrest. Then, I googled you after we met this morning... you insisted on getting our drinks, and I realized that the robberies aren’t the killer story here… the killer story is you.” 

All at once, every ounce of blood she has feels like it rushes to her ears, and she can actually hear her heart beating throughout every inch of her body, the rate increasing with each passing second as she begins to panic. 

It is true. She waived off the waiter when they arrived and insisted on getting their drinks herself, saying that she didn’t trust them to get her order right. It was a flimsy excuse being that it is nearly impossible to mess up two glasses of wine, but no one else in her life questions her weak ass excuses. 

Nolan, Jackson, Harper, and Lopez all had the question in their eyes the first time she went out with them after the abduction. But they know her well enough to know the answer without ever asking the question.

People knowing about her - her story, her kidnapping, her survival - isn’t lost on her. It is a frequent topic in her therapy sessions. How can she get people to see her - the strong, bad ass cop, who is kind, bold, and doesn’t waver? How can she convince people that she is all those things when her name is also listed first on Wikipedia under ‘Victims of Caleb Wright’. 

She and Tim rescued two people from a burning vehicle last week. Later that night, she pulled out her laptop and googled her name, hoping and praying with every fiber of her being that her saving someone would be the headline, not her being the victim, but she ended up slamming her laptop shut, tears stinging her eyes after reading the LA Times article where they called her a kidnapping victim in the first line and a cop in the sixth. 

It is supposed to get easier. 

Her vision blurs, and every instinct she has is screaming run, you can’t stay here with her. She also knows that if she leaves now, she will never know exactly what Valerie means by her being the story. After all, she didn’t say her kidnapping was the story, or her survival was the story, or being one of Caleb’s victims was the story. She said Lucy was the story, and that thought alone, gives her the courage to take a deep breath, roll her shoulders back, and accept Valerie’s invitation to talk about this privately in her hotel room. 

They are halfway there when Lucy reaches her trembling hands into her jacket pocket and pulls out her phone to text Tim. 

No matter how this turns out - if she stays or if she goes - she needs someone to drive her home. Jackson will ask too many questions and Nolan will try and fix everything, no fix her, and she needs someone right now who won't treat her like a glass doll that could shatter at any second, even if it means doing hundreds of burpees during their next shift. 

_Went to drinks with Valerie… not who she says she is. Need help. Millennium Biltmore. Room 912._

**On my way.**

______________________

After entering the room, Valerie takes a seat on the chair to the right of the sofa, calmly placing her purse on the ground next to her. She rifles through it for a moment and pulls out an old fashioned recorder, along with a notepad and pen. 

Lucy stops pacing at that, her face paling as it dawns on her that this was probably the plan from the beginning. She takes a deep breath and says, “There never was a robbery ring, was there?”

Valerie briefly glances up from her notebook and shakes her head. “There was… like I said. They aren’t the big story here,” she flips her notebook open, setting her recorder on the coffee table in front of her. “You are.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Lucy frowns, her eyes shifting briefly to the door while she calculates how long it will take for Tim to get from his house to the hotel. For her sake, she hopes he is still at the station, a short five min drive away. She meets Valerie’s gaze and shakes her head when she motions to have a seat on the sofa across from her own seat. “I’ll stand, thanks.”

Valerie tilts her head, presumably noticing how Lucy keeps looking towards the door. “Who are we waiting for?”

“Tim,” Lucy answers firmly. 

Valerie frowns, “Why? This isn’t his story to tell.”

Lucy sighs, pulls out her phone, and checks the time. He must be coming from his house. Maybe, she figures, if she hears Valerie out now, then she and Tim can just leave the second he gets here. No explaining. No pissed off Tim glares. Just a ride home. Relenting, she shoves her phone back into her jacket pocket, walks around the couch, and takes a seat on the sofa. 

“Then tell me,” Lucy says, not missing the quick smirk that appears on Valerie’s face. That alone makes her stomach turn. “What story are you trying to tell?”

Valerie clicks her pen, glancing quickly down to what must be her notes. “The drinks before…was that because of your abduction?” At Lucy’s pursed lips, she adds on, “You’re a cop. I imagine there was some kind of drugging involved and no bartender botches two glasses of wine.”

Lucy shakes out her hands at her sides, never letting her eyes drift from Valerie’s face. People knowing how she was abducted bothers her more than the actual abduction does. 

Saying, “Yeah, I’m a cop who was roofied and didn’t notice,” was hard enough when Armstrong visited her in the hospital a short 12 hours after she was abducted. Saying it out loud? To her friends, colleagues, people she trusts and who are supposed to trust her with their lives? Well, that makes her feel like a complete and utter failure. 

“Yes,” she replies, absentmindedly glancing down at the ring around her finger. “It's… it’s not something that’s public record. The detectives know, and it’s in the official police report, so I assume Tim and - and the others know about it, but yes.”

She looks up at Valerie, expecting to see the closed lipped, wide soft eyed, pity look she has grown accustomed to from friends and strangers alike. Instead, her lips are in a flat line, and she is leaning towards Lucy, savoring every moment. 

Lucy tilts her head slightly, furrowing her brows. “What’s the story here Valerie?” she questions, managing to keep her voice strong and tone even by some miracle. “Tell me now or I’m walking out that door.” 

“You’re a cop,” Valerie scoffs, eyes hard, devoid of any sympathy or compassion. “You spent months learning how to read people, sparring and disarming people whose intent is to harm-“

Tim, bless his ever loving heart, interrupts Valerie’s rant by knocking hard on the door. Lucy breathes an internal sigh of relief as she hurries to the door and pulls it open. 

Lucy expects to see the classic Tim growl. Instead, his expression is blank, and he barely glances at her before he pushes past her into the room. Lucy shuts the door quickly and follows him. 

Valerie barely pays Tim any attention as he comes to a stop in front of the chair she’s sitting in, and crosses his arms. “You need to go,” he states, voice hard. “Now.”

Valerie’s eyes flick over his shoulder towards Lucy, then her lips quirk up slightly as she gives Tim her attention. “Now, Officer Bradford. That decision is up to Lucy,” she says, gesturing to where Lucy is as she comes to a stop just behind Tim. “If she wants me to go, then we will end this interview right here, right now.”

Tim turns his head, looking back at her with a raised eyebrow.

Lucy shakes her head. All this time, all this therapy, all this guilt over letting herself get caught off guard and she sat there and let it happen. Again. A large part of her wants to grab Tim by the arm and leave this hotel room as fast as humanly possible. The logical part of her brain needs answers. 

“Why now?“ Lucy asks in a much softer voice than before as she steps forward until she’s right next to Tim. “It’s old news.”

That same line is what she repeats to herself on a loop every single time they come up on a new incident, terrified that the people there that are trusting her to help them will decline her help once they realize who she is and what she let happen to her. 

It’s old news, she repeats in her head. 

“Boot,” Tim gruffs, ducking his head slightly to meet her eyes. “You sure this is such a good idea?” 

Lucy tilts her head at him, and smiles softly, as Valerie looks briefly between the two, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. 

“I want to know,” Lucy decides. 

Tim blows a quick breath out and nods. “I trust you.”

Valerie rolls her eyes, and gestures to the couch, “If you two are done, sit.” Tim declines, but Lucy retakes her position on the couch. It isn’t lost on her that unlike the first time she sat here, her hands are not shaking anymore. “Did you know that there were 52 kidnappings in Los Angeles last month alone?”

Lucy looks up at Tim in time to see him roll his eyes and grunt. “We’re cops. You think we don’t know there are kidnappings in LA?”

Valerie ignores him, waiting for Lucy’s attention to come back to her before continuing. “Half of those kidnappings occurred while women - like yourself - were on dates with men. These women… they’re not trained like you are. They didn’t spend months in the police academy and then months on the streets learning how to defend themselves. You did.”

“So what?” Lucy questions, growing more and more agitated with each passing second. The last thing she needs is for this to turn into a blame fest. She already does that enough on her own time. She can feel Tim’s eyes burning holes into the side of her face, but she ignores him. “So, you want to make an example out of me or something? What not to do?”

“No,” Valerie replies, sliding forward on her chair towards Lucy. Tim takes a protective step forward, so that the side of his leg is pressed against the arm of the sofa Lucy is sitting on. “That’s not it.”

“Then what?” Tim barks, using his best TO voice.

Valerie is not intimidated and does not let her eyes leave Lucy’s. 

“You’ve been trained. And this still happened to you,” Valerie repeats as if Lucy is suddenly going to understand. She pauses for a moment, and when Lucy says nothing, she continues, “This isn’t an attack on your character or your ability to be a police officer. When stuff like this happens, people always say ‘Well maybe if she took self defense classes’ ‘Maybe if she had a gun’ ‘Maybe if she knew the warning signs’. I want your version of the story. Because maybe if they hear your side of the story, they will stop putting all the responsibility on the women who are assaulted and start placing the blame where it belongs; with the criminals. And maybe,” she licks in her lips in hesitation, “you can take back some of the power, too.”

Lucy watches her finger twist the ring that saved her life as she runs through every possible outcome in her mind. If she tells her side of the story, people, including herself, could continue to see her as the victim. The list of cons is much longer than her list of pros, but then she imagines a young girl, new to LA, who accepts a date with her dream guy. A girl who gets shoved into the back of a car. A girl who most likely won’t have two parents who are psychologists and one of the best in the city on speed dial to assist in her recovery. 

She lifts her head, turning it upwards to look at Tim. He gives her a small smile, eyes softening around the edges, and it isn’t lost on Lucy just how lucky she is to have him - and everyone else - in her corner, fighting these demons alongside her. 

The next girl might not be so lucky. 

Like most situations in her life, her desire to help others outweighs any self preservation she has. 

Lucy takes a deep breath in, summoning all the courage she can muster, eyes never leaving Tim’s as she says, “Ask away.”

______________________

Tim watches her as she heads down the hallway towards the elevator. Her arms are folded over her chest, shoulders hunched as she walks a few steps in front of him. All he can think about is another time in his life - a time when he frequently folded in on himself just like that. He thought if he just made himself small enough that all the trauma, and worry, and self loathing, would just skip right over him.

He did that a lot - made himself smaller - until his teacher helped him see that he is more than the weight of those things.

It started when the cops had been called to his house the night before. A typical occurrence, given that his father's preferred method of conflict resolution was using his voice and fists.

Like always, the officers arrived and his mother told them that everything was fine - she tripped over loose wires - and that their services weren’t needed. 

The officer in charge - an older balding man with wise eyes and a gentle gaze - took one look at Tim sitting on the couch and asked him if he was alright. Both parents tried to interrupt, saying _the kid is fine_ and _I told you, officer there’s nothing to be concerned about_. 

Tim merely shrugged, thoughts of boys don’t cry and emotions make you weak running through his impressionable young mind. After a beat, he told the officer that he was okay, just wanted to get back to work on his book report that was due the next day. 

The officer nodded, filled out the necessary paperwork, and just like all the other times before, left without sparing him a second glance. 

Tim walked into school the next morning with his head held high, marched straight up to Mrs. Winter, and handed her his report that he finished in the early morning hours, using only a flashlight to see the words he was writing.

No matter what came his way, he was determined to never let his problems at home become his problems at school. School was a safe place where he could leave the shattered glass, broken bones, and middle of the night screaming matches at the door and focus on simpler things - like book reports.

His teacher looked up from where she was taking the role and furrowed her brows as she looked at the paper being handed to her. Tim watched as her eyes roamed the page. He didn’t relax until her lips parted in a wide smile.

Unbeknownst to Tim, Officer Bennett had called the school early that morning and informed her that Tim likely would not be turning in a book report on time, and if he did, to cut him some slack for the quality of it. Tim’s parents had been fighting, he explained, it wasn’t the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. 

Tim would never forget the pride he felt as she took the report from him, her eyes burning with determination and said, “Tim Bradford, you are a resolute young man."

Of course, he was only nine at the time, and had no idea what that meant. 

During library hour later that day, he pulled out a dictionary and looked up the definition, studying it over and over again until he had it memorized. If Mrs. Winter noticed how he walked with his head held higher and his spine a little straighter after that... well, she didn’t say a word.

Throughout the course of his life, Tim finds himself thinking back on that word and the woman who first introduced him to it. At the time, it held a promise for him. A promise of good things to come if he stayed resolute.

He repeats the definition again when he makes the decision to join the military straight out of high school, and again when he runs into Officer Bennett after returning from duty and decides to become a cop, and again when he says his vows to Isabel.

A few of the proudest moments in his life. Ones where he felt that perhaps, he was living up to his teacher’s description of him.

Then, Isabel becomes an addict, they get divorced, and he once again thinks that maybe he doesn’t deserve those words after all.

The first time he thinks of it not in the context of himself is when Lucy turns to him in the hospital - bandages covering her face, wincing from two broken ribs - and smiles.

The memory of her bright smile, quite literally embodying the definition of resolute, makes him pick up his pace until he is walking next to her down the hallway. She tosses him the smallest of glances as he comes up next to her, before tucking her chin to her chest. 

Tim shoves his hands into his pockets, waiting for her to say something, anything, or nothing. He just wants to make sure she’s okay.

“I haven’t slept in weeks,” she says, taking a deep breath to steel herself. “And the other day I nearly had a panic attack because Jackson’s electric shaver sounds a lot like the sound of a tattoo gun and my default is always going to be trusting people even when they turn out to be shady reporters or serial killers, and I can’t handle you being mad at me right now, Tim. I just can’t. Please… can the trouble wait until tomorrow,” she mumbles so quietly he barely catches it.

And, my god, if his heart isn't breaking before, it certainly is now. He feels a lot of things for Lucy in that moment - many of which he is not comfortable putting a name to - but anger? That is the furthest thing from his mind.

They are nearly in front of the elevators now, so he turns sharply on his feet to face her. He wants - no needs - her to really hear the next words he says. “You’re not in trouble, boot.”

She frowns, coming to a stop, leaning against the wall. “You were right,” she nods, slowly lifting her head to look him in the eyes. “I was being naive. Just like I was with Caleb.”

If he had known when Lucy texted him that he was going to witness her describing everything she would have done differently, how she would have asked the bartender for a new drink, instead of leaving it on the bar while she went to the bathroom. How she would have texted the address of the bar to Jackson or Nolan before she met Caleb that night along with his full name, social media profiles, the time she left, and the time she expected to be home.

He listened as she admitted each mistake she made, in hopes of protecting others from suffering her same fate.

With each admission, her entire body tensed as she twisted the ring on her finger, and he knows his boot well enough to guess that she was thinking, “This was my fault. If I had done one thing differently, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

After all, identical thoughts ran through his mind after his dad beat his mom for the first time; after he watched his friends - brothers - die in front of him again and again overseas; and especially when Isabel came home one day, but not the next.

He can tell Lucy that she saved her own life with her unwavering determination, while staring down torture and death, because _she did_. After all, very few people face off with a serial killer and win. Even that, he knows, would never convince her otherwise.

Instead, he licks his lips, thinking back to the time when she was pricked by a needle and says, “We roll up on a rape victim tomorrow. She’s terrified, bruised, and blaming herself. What are you going to say to her?”

She sets her lips into a grim line. “Is this person a cop who spent months in the academy learning self defense?” she questions, her voice raising with each syllable. She leans around him and slaps the call button for the elevator. “Or a cop who also has a degree in psychology and two parents who treat people like him on a daily basis?”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

Her eyebrows shoot up and her face twists into a grimace as the elevator dings. She waits until they are both inside before she speaks again. “No,” she says, her voice deflating. “It isn’t.”

He hits the button for the parking garage and sighs, both of them leaning against the wall. “I’m not…” he starts, trying and failing to arrange his thoughts. Whatever he says will make him a hypocrite, knowing that if anyone besides that psychopath is to blame for this, it's him. If he hadn’t told her to go out and get a drink, then she wouldn’t be standing in front of him, looking so small.

He momentarily thinks about telling her this, shifting the blame off of her and onto him. He has experience with this stuff, knows that he can hold the trauma and blame for both of them. But Lucy sniffles, and he knows that she would carry the weight of Tim’s guilt, as well as her own, on her shoulders like a blanket, letting it drag her further and further down.

There will be a time and a place for his guilt, but not here. Not now.

He knows Lucy decided long ago that she isn't going to let Tim’s trauma turn him into someone he doesn't recognize and he would be damned if he didn’t do the same for her.

“I’m not trying to tell you how to feel,” he says, echoing his words from the gym. “If you want to spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for what happened, then that’s your right. I’m just trying to point out the reality.”

“Which is?”

“You’re making yourself too important.”

Lucy opens her mouth to argue, but Tim cuts her off by raising his finger.

“Caleb,” he tries to ignore her wincing at his name, “could have taken you from anywhere. Let’s say you hadn’t left your drink on the bar. He probably had a thousand backup plans. He could have chloroformed you as you walked out with him. He could have followed you home from the bar on the first night. He could have knocked you out, dragged you kicking and screaming from your house, the station-”

“That wasn’t his M.O.,” she points out, shifting in place. “I let my guard down and made myself an easy target.”

Tim shakes his head, firmly saying, “No. You leaving your drink at the bar wasn’t the catalyst you think it was. He was a serial killer, boot. And a fucking trained one at that. Criminals always find a way. That’s what they do.”

“I want to believe that,” she inhales a deep breath, and blows it out slowly as she lowers her head to stare at the ground. “I really do.”

Tim bends his head down to grab her attention away from the floor. He waits until she meets his eyes and says, “Then, I’ll be here every day, reminding you over and over again until you do.” 

Lucy’s lips part slightly at that - the weight of his words not lost on either of them - and nods, blinking back tears.

The elevator opens then, and they walk in silence the rest of the way.

He recognizes that this will be a conversation they will revisit for days, weeks, months to come. A daunting task to some, but in a weird way he feels privileged that this determined, unwavering, steady woman trusts him to be that person for her.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, Lucy became that person for him. The one who forces him to be better and do more. She is there - always there - offering a kind smile, and reassuring words. Even when he doesn't deserve it.

To see her questioning the nurturing kindness that’s the very fiber of who she is, pains him.

He steals a quick look at her, the insecure part of him telling him he hasn’t done enough. That if the situation was reversed Lucy would be doing more, saying more. The thought gnaws at him until Lucy plucks her keys from her pocket, looks up at him, and smiles. It’s the lightest of smiles, so quick that if he blinked at the same moment he would have missed it, but it’s enough to quell the insecurity.

“Thanks, Tim,” she whispers.

“For what?” he smiles, thinking back on all of their previous conversations. “Doing my job?”

She chuckles and nods, turning towards her car to unlock it.

He digs his own keys out of his pocket and starts towards his car. Before Valerie, before Lucy’s abduction, before she sobbed in his arms as he clutched her to his chest, he would have left the conversation there, and drove home.

He thinks back to the quiet contentment that spread through him when Mrs. Winter said that one sentence to him so many years ago. It’s inappropriate, he knows, for a training officer to say something so personal to their trainee, let alone a trainee who has been through more shit in the past month than most people experience in a lifetime.

But if he can give her even an ounce of that same contentment he felt in that moment, then he will.

Consequences be damned.

Turning sharply on his heel he calls out for her, keys anxiously twirling around his fingers.

Lucy stops, leans against her open car door and looks at him, issuing a silent question with a tilt of her head and the lift of her eyebrows.

He swallows, gaze skipping over her in a way that definitely isn’t as nonchalant as he wants it to be, and says, “You’re resolute… boot. I need you to know that.”

Determined. Unwavering. Bold. Steady.

_Lucy._


End file.
